Robert C. Kauffmann, born 1900, was an American artist who excelled at commercial illustration.
Kauffmann was born in Chicago, Illinois, later moving to New York. He is best known for his advertising campaigns during the 1920s and 1930s, including ones for The Red Cross, Mallory Hats, Arrow Collars, Stetson Hats and several others.
His commercial illustrations drew the attention of the Saturday Evening Post whom he painted five covers for between 1925 and 1938.
Kauffmann would go on to begin teaching commercial illustration at The Murray Art School, regularly giving talks for the Advertising Club of Wilkes-Barre during their luncheon meetings. He was obsessed with the importance of colour, composition, and the fundamentals of layouts -- using 35mm colour slides to illustrate the importance of each. Much like Norman Rockwell. Kauffmann excelled at showing the lighter side of life, juxtaposed along with a touching moment of Americana. That’s not the only way in which both artists were similar, though Rockwell has received much more attention over the years, Kauffmann was also a master of colour, composition, and frequently taught his students to develop their formal technique.
Robert C. Kauffmann died in 1999, aged 99. Very little is known of him and like many illustrators of his time, he is all but forgotten under the looming legacy of Norman Rockwell.
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